What am I missing? Pre/power gain and input sensitivity.

My main objection to vinyl is the ticks, pops, and noise.

@cat_doorman A lot of ticks and pops that people react to when playing vinyl are caused by the phono preamp itself (due to high frequency overload) and aren't actually on the LP itself. Its a bit technically complex to describe quickly, but has a lot to do with the fact that the phono cartridge has an inductance and the tonearm cable has a capacitance- together they can create Radio Frequency energy that can overload the phono section's input stage for very brief periods- the ticks and pops. So if the designer didn't take this into account, you get more ticks and pops. And yes, most of the phono sections out there have this problem!

The funny thing is, most digital sources due to Redbook standards put out too much voltage for most amps- IOW connecting them to a power amp will cause the amp to run at or near overload!


So the signal has to be knocked down, which is dumb IMO/IME. This requires a volume control and is why passive volume controls have become common. The problem is that most passive controls have an artifact which is to decrease impact at all frequencies if less than full volume. This problem is eliminated by buffering the control. So you'll need active circuitry in any event; it would have made more sense if the Redbook standard was set to 1 volt like tuners and consumer tape machines had been prior to digital.


I've noticed some confusion around this topic over the years so here are two things that are related to it:

the volume control **does not** say how loud you are playing the system. The signal level does.
Amplifier gain is different from amplifier power. Two amps can put out the same amount of power but one can have 25dB of gain and the other 35dB; obviously the one with the higher gain will play louder with the same signal level, but in the end both amps will only get as loud as their power allows.